and so starts the weekend spent at the first ever Camp Blogaway in the beautiful San Bernardino mountains in Southern California. What a weekend it was. Simply fabulous. It was created by our fearless leader Patti Londre. I think from the sound of things this might become a yearly event. From the moment we arrived Friday afternoon we were entertained with workshops, seminars, social networking, s’mores and laughter.

We learned a ton (and went neck to neck) with PR folks. We built silly frosted cakes as an “ice breaker” activity. We enjoyed a camera seminar by Art Ramirez. We learned from one of the best food stylists Denise Vivaldo. Danny Jauregui of Food Bloggers Unite gave a wonderful SEO presentation. Patti gave a great talk on running our blogs like true businesses. We learned recipe writing from Barbara Gibbs Ostmann, who co-authored The Recipe Writer’s Handbook. For more on the great line up of speakers, topics and activities please click HERE.

It was wonderful to make new friends and see old ones. Funny how “old” friends are people I have known under a year. Our relationships get stronger each time we see each other, even when we have face time just once or a few times a year. Our time spent online, checking out each others blogs, stumbling, tweeting and cheering each other on is a friendship promise I will treasure and keep.

This sounds like so much fun! I love camping, and have always wanted to participate in a blogger meet-up. Yay for the athlete award! It’s great you fit in all that fitness with those adorable kids of yours!

Marla! What fun, what wonderful fun! I need to be living in a more densely populated area. There are just not enough of us up here to do this… or are there? Hmmmm…
I loved seeing your snacks. I would have been very surprised if you had dived in to all of that junk food in the first couple of shots.
Thank you so much for sharing!
PS – how much lead time did you have on this. When did everyone find out about it? I may do something like this here…
Cheers,
Valerie

I was having a hard time breathing up there and you were working out!! =)

Great recap of a very educational and productive weekend, Marla. It was great to see you at Camp and I appreciated your questions during the PR Panel discussions. You put me to shame bringing up your own healthy meals.

I wanna hear about the Blogher Food Conference since you scored with a valuable ticket! Keep in touch!